


New Home

by minxiebutt



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, fixing up a new home together, mama kuchel, tiny levi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 10:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/minxiebutt
Summary: Kuchel is determined to give Levi a better life by giving him better opportunities.





	New Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laffitine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laffitine/gifts).



> The second giveaway fic, for Laffitine. Thank you for your patience.

When Levi is five years old, Kuchel takes his hand and they walk to the public library. He cooperates for a while as she pours over the zone map in the reference section, but by the time she’s standing at the copier and entering coins for the pages she’s printing, Levi begins squirming. 

As he plays in the children’s learning area, she looks between the zone map and the realty listings for the area she wants. If she’s going to give him any hope in life, she’s got to give him a good education, and to get a good education, she needs to put him in a school that receives a lot of property tax. She can’t afford most of the homes there, but Kenny mentioned something about a potential loophole.

There’s a tiny, beatdown, fixer-upper cottage at the edge of the best school district in the city. It’s a shab compared to everything else, but it’s what she can afford. Mentally, she figures the meager savings she has will be large enough in comparison to work as a down payment. The monthly mortgage payment will be about the same as what she pays to rent the basement bedroom they currently call home, and this is something she has to do, so she meets with an agent to make the purchase.

It’s the ugliest place she’s ever had to live, but the realtor said it had good bones. The foundation, electric, and plumbing where all in good condition, but it’s just so… ugly. Kuchel gets an ex-boyfriend to help move her and Levi’s stuff.

“Look at you,” he whistles, parking backward in the driveway so that they can unload the stuff from the bed of his truck. “Twenty-one and a homeowner.”

“Wasn’t too long ago people only cared that I was eighteen and knocked up,” she grumbles. Beside her, Levi scowls at the ugly house. He doesn’t like the wood panelling on every wall, so she promised that he could help paint over it. 

It takes all of five minutes to get everything in the house. Kuchel watches the way Levi warms up to their new home, first slowly wandering through and looking for any hidden monsters, and then running through the entire house like he’s on a marathon.

She unpacks the kitchen easily, taking their new plates and pans out to put into the cabinets. For dinner, she makes spaghetti and heats up some frozen peas, and after Levi gets tucked into bed, Kenny comes over so that she can go to work.

The first month in their new home is spent between shopping at thrift stores to get furniture and pulling up the carpet to expose the hardwood floor beneath. She opens all the windows and lets the fresh air work its magic when it comes to the waxing process, and Levi plays outside in the yard, exploring the overgrown shrubs, bushes, and grass like an explorer in a new land. He fills one of their plastic cups with water and brings all the flowers he finds to put in it so that they can decorate the little folding table where they eat.

“Mama,” he says at lunch, halfway through his peanut butter sandwich. “I like this house.”

“Really, baby?” Kuchel reaches out and ruffles his hair and he giggles, squirmy and ticklish. “That’s good. We’re going to live here for a very long time.”

With Levi’s new approval comes his timid desire to help out. When she saves up enough money to buy paint and supplies, she asks Levi to help her cover the floors with a sheet and lay tape over the baseboards, a task that he takes very seriously. Levi puts so much focus into it that he tuckers himself out and goes to his bed. Kuchel finds him a few minutes later, sprawled out and sleeping in a surprise nap.

Painting the two bedrooms, hallway, living room, and the one bathroom takes an entire week, and then it’s time to cover up the gaudy word panel pattern in the kitchen. She lets Levi pick out a pale canary yellow, and hoists him up onto the counters with a little brush in his hands. In the end, he gets more paint on himself than the cabinets, but he refuses to stop until he’s put the first coat over all of them.

“Good work!” Kuchel cheers, kissing his forehead. Levi’s so proud of his work that he insists on helping with the top coat of paint as well, and this time, Kuchel lets him do it in his underpants so that he doesn’t ruin any more clothes.

After the interior is to their satisfaction, Levi helps Kuchel tackle the yard work. They pull weeds and toss them all into the fire pit with the promise of roasting marshmallows over the flame later. Without the proper machinery to pull up bushes, she resorts to clipping them back down into something small and manageable, tossing the trimmed bits into the pit for later, too. After a whole weekend, it’s not such an eyesore.

Summer comes into full swing, and with it, school registration. Kuchel puts on her nicest clothes and gathers up all the necessary paperwork. The staff are friendly and helpful, and if they have an opinion on her address, they keep it to themselves. When she gets back home, Kenny’s spraying Levi down with the water hose in the backyard, chasing the laughing boy with the spray of water.

Standing in the doorway watching, holding Levi’s new uniform in her hands, she feels a burst of confidence, knowing that she made the right choice.

 

Watching Levi pack for university is bittersweet. Just like she’d hoped, he’d gotten into a very good school across the country, a place where alumni status will guarantee him a strong entrance to the work force in four years. She couldn’t be prouder, but at the same time, every tiny part of their home reminds her of her little boy.

The walls he helped paint. The framed crayon scribblings that they hung up to display on the walls. The rose-patterned tile backsplash he chose for the kitchen when him and Kenny surprised her for Mother’s Day when he was eight. In middle school, Levi made her a windchime, and it gently sings on their front porch as she waves to him while he backs out of the driveway. 

She didn’t do so bad, she thinks. 

  
  



End file.
